This historic cemetery has been visited several times in recent years by White County Historical Society volunteers, who
continue to do periodic updates. Diann Poe and her cousin Billie Willingham,
both of Letona, conducted a survey in October 2000 and again in March 2001,
updating a list that had been prepared by volunteers Mitzi Hitchcock and Bill
Martin. The Poe/Willingham report included these directions: “To get to the
cemetery, go two blocks past the old store in Letona, turn left on Mt. Pisgah
Road. The cemetery is about 1˝ miles south of Letona on Mt. Pisgah Road at the
base of the mountain. When you come to a little creek bridge, keep going
straight head. It’s on the right. The cemetery is in fair shape. The back
drive is rutted out and in need of gravel. There are some limbs in a few spots
and a lot of markers are covered with moss.” They found some 70 rocks or stones that were blank or illegible and
one stone marked only with “C.”

The
records were updated again by Leroy Blair of the Historical Society after he
visited the cemetery with his wife Ellen on June 25 and 26, 2001, and again in
late 2002. Subsequent burials were added by the historical society based
on published obituaries. Blair was unable to find several graves that were
on the earlier list, reporting “This cemetery is very difficult to list due to
how the graves are scattered. It is very easy to miss some graves...”
Also, he reported that “There is a very large modern double stone that has
fallen off its base and is lying with names down so they cannot be seen; it is
too heavy for one person to lift.” He pointed out that the back
drive mentioned in the previous listing has now been graveled and most limbs
have been removed.

On December 17, 1978, the
White County Daily Citizen published the following article, entitled “Mt.
Pisgah to beautify cemetery.”The members of the Mount Pisgah Cemetery Board met December 10 to
discuss the care and beauty of the cemetery, Clyde E. Crozier, secretary/treasurer, reported. Crozier said the members decided that anything
which would interfere with mowing over graves or ground with the exception of
headstones be removed. They also decided that in the future all markers for
family plots be placed level with the ground and that all flowers which are
brought to the cemetery be placed only on the headstones.

Leroy
Blair visited this cemetery again in January and February 2005. Checking
headstones, he added 37 new names to the list and made other adjustments. He
was unable to find several graves that were on the previous lists. “Most of
them had been marked previously with funeral home markers or carved on rocks.
I saw several rocks with letters on them but not clear enough to read.”

If you have corrections
or additions to this list or other information on this cemetery, contact the
White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 537, Searcy, AR 72145.

Name

Birth

Death

Comments

, Lois

August 9, 1953

59 yrs., 8 mo., 24 das. funeral marker

?,

February 3, 1905

no name and no other date carved on a rock

?,

February 4, 1905

no name and no other date carved on a rock

Aaron, Horace F.

August 26, 1904

December 1, 1930

Aaron, Joseph A.

March 21, 1873

July 23, 1907

Aaron, Naomi

July 2, 1875

April 3, 1953

Abington, Janis Diane

September 4, 1946

October 4, 198

Acrey, Imogene

July 12, 1932

stillborn daughter of Celia and Joe Acrey granddaughter of John and Mattie (Ketchum) Acrey from Georgia

There are two new small granite stones on one side of Horace D. Mitchell’s grave and one on the other side. They could be markers for old graves that were unmarked or markers for future use. Two of them have the initials D.L.M. on them, and the other has B.J.M. on it.

Thomas, Aileen Doris

February 22, 1926

August 5, 1999

DS with Richard Leroy

Thomas, Harold W.

May 11, 1943

Ark. Cpl. U.S. Army

Thomas, Howard C.

February 25, 1924

September 18, 1951

U.S. Navy WWII

Thomas, Rachel R.

January 26, 1905

April 12, 1905

DS with Richard G.

Thomas, Richard G.

January 14, 1905

March 20, 1905

Thomas, Richard Leroy

January 3, 1920

vacant

Thomas, Robert E.

March 11, 1898

January 7, 1974

WWII

Thomas, Sadie Ann

August 27, 1905

July 20, 1950

W.J. Co. D 14 Tenn. Cav.

Thornton, Ava

October 28, 1893

March 28, 1993 (maybe 1893)

sister of Carrie on double stone with Carrie Lee Thornton on the back of this stone in large letters is the word WEST

Thornton, Carrie Lee

January 29, 1908

February 3, 1965

sister of Ava on double stone with Ava Thornton on the back of this stone in large letters is the word WEST

Mount Pisgah

Home to American Indians,

site of Confederate battles, it was once a thriving village

By HEBER TAYLOR

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, December 5, 1999

MOUNT PISGAH-The pioneers who settled Mount Pisgah,
starting about 1816, called their new home “Mount Pisgy.” That’s what it’s
still called by the approximately 100 residents who live in the White County
farming community about three miles south of Letona.

The early settlers got the
name from the Old Testament, where it refers to a mountain east of the Jordan
River. The Israelites came to it on their way to the Promised Land and Moses,
who wasn’t allowed to go all the way, climbed Pisgah to look at the Promised
Land before he died.

Thomas Haney, whose
great/grandfather came to the area in about 1855, believes settlers were
attracted by cheap land (“25 cents an acres”) and easy access to water. “There
were springs and creeks in the area,” he said.

Early settlers came from
North Carolina and Alabama and, a little later, from Illinois. The Magness
family may have been the first to arrive, Haney said. Magness Creek bears their
name.

When her husband had to be
away, Mrs. Magness put on men’s clothes to fool the Indians in the area. Men
took their guns to church in those early days to protect themselves and their
families from attacks by Indians who camped near the foot of the mountain.

If you visit the large
Mount Pisgah cemetery, you’ll find tombstones of people born in the 1820s.
Haney believes people were buried there as early as 1830. He’s heard that
Indians used the same burial ground before the settlers arrived.

Haney’s grandfather, Jimmy
D. Haney, was just a boy during the Civil War but he found himself close to a
small battle. According to Mrs. W.C. Welch, writing in the June 1965 White
County Heritage, Jimmy D. and a playmate were hiding a horse in the woods
when a Confederate captain and a group of men attacked some Yankee soldiers who
were camped near the mountain. The captain and his men were soon fleeing
through the woods, but they paused long enough to take the boys’ horse to
replace one of theirs that was exhausted.

Thomas Haney said that he
has found Civil War Minie balls on his farm. He’s also found arrowheads there.

Welch wrote that Mount
Pisgah was a thriving village at the turn of the century. Early general stores
were operated near the cemetery by a Mr. Kates, Jim Gray and J.R. Woodson.
Woodson was the first postmaster and the post office was in his store. Thomas
Haney thinks the post office probably lasted from about 1880 to about 1910.Welch said a Dr. Ward
practiced medicine and had a drugstore as well as an office in Mount Pisgah.
Amos and Charlie Suit had a store where caskets were sold. Welch wrote, “The
Suits were also photographers and they ran a picture studio adjacent to the
casket shop.”

The older citizens
mentioned to her that an effort was made to open a saloon in the village before
1900, but public opinion prevailed against it.

The early churches at Mount
Pisgah included Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. The Methodist and
Baptist buildings are apparently still in their original locations near the
cemetery.

The first school had a
one/room building in the cemetery. Later buildings were about a half/mile
south. After Mount Pisgah lost its school to consolidation in 1947, the
building was converted into a home by Claud Smith.

The village’s shift to the
south and a little east came after the Missouri and North Arkansas (M&NA)
railroad began providing service to Mount Pisgah in 1906. There was no depot,
but there was a flag station in the new part of town. Welch said that you
flagged the train with a white handkerchief by day and a swinging lantern by
night.

Stores and houses were
built near the flag station. Paul Crain, whose father, Jake, ran one of the
stores, said that people joked back then that M&NA meant “May Never Arrive.”

Crain said his father had
to close that store in 1930 because a drought and the Depression were forcing
people to buy on credit. “My father didn’t have money to buy things to sell
with,” he said.

Another nearby store was
owned by a Mr. Kincaid. Crain said that when he was 7 or 8, he was Kincaid’s
partner in croquet games.

Paul Crain later played
basketball for the Mount Pisgah School. Evidently the rivalry with Crosby,
about three miles south, was intense. Crain remembers his school borrowing a
player from Letona for a game against Crosby. In those days, the courts were
outside, he said.

Elton English, who grew up
in the Georgia Ridge community on top of the mountain, lived close enough to
Mount Pisgah to do farm work there. He said that around 1939 and ’40, he would
come through a low gap in the mountain to plow cotton for the Crozier family.

Besides cotton, he
remembers farmers raising corn for their livestock, sorghum for molasses,
strawberries and peanuts. Now they’re more likely to have cattle or tree farms.

English said that when
electricity came to the area, Earl Willingham would not let the power company
top his trees. The result was / and still is / some of the tallest poles for
electric lines you’ll see anywhere.

English said that when the
Depression hit, his father hunted in the winter to supplement his income. He
bought a young hound named “Eagle” and worked at hunting like men work at a
job. “He made $200 during hunting season,” English said. “Once, he got a $5
bonus for a gray fox fur.”

Elton English and his
family eventually moved to Mount Pisgah. They took care of John Victor Nations
for a few years before his death in 1967.

John Victor was an orphan
in the 1890s; when he was adopted in Clarksville he didn’t know his last name,
age or where he had come from. According to Mrs. Leister Presley of Searcy, he
knew that his two brothers and baby sister had found homes with relatives but no
one took him. He also knew he had come a long way by train.

His new parents moved to
White County, where the father, David Nations, died in 1913. John Victor never
married, but lived with his mother until she died. He lived alone, but had many
friends and loved to be with them. When he had no one else to talk to, he would
go out to the road in front of the house and talk to people as they passed by,
Presley said. When the English family came, he not only had someone to talk to,
but he also had Elton English to hunt with.

One thing that a visitor in
Mount Pisgah notices is the gravel roads where there would be paved streets if
the village had continued to grow. But the most noticeable thing, and the
biggest, is the mountain.

Speaking of the old part of
Mount Pisgah, where the cemetery and churches are and where the first stores
used to be, Welch wrote: “In that picturesque setting and near the resting
place of their loved ones … the entire scene is guarded over by Mount Pisgah,
the mountain, as it stands like a sentinel through the ages.”